The trust level of a computing device (e.g., a personal computer, a workstation, a laptop computer, a handheld computer, a mobile internet device, a cellular phone, a personal data assistant, a telephony device, a network appliance, a virtualization device, a storage controller, or other computer-based device) may be a decision criterion for allowing the computing device to participate in various activities and/or transactions. By way of illustrative example, the trust level of a computing device may be a factor in determining whether to allow the computing device to process and/or store sensitive data (e.g., corporate records) or whether to allow the computing device to execute sensitive transactions (e.g., financial transactions). It will be appreciated that the trust level of a computing device may be relevant to many other types of activities and/or transactions.
Many events that a computing device participates in over its lifecycle may influence the trust level of the computing device. For instance, a new smart phone that has just been unboxed will have a higher trust level than a three year old smart phone that has been “jailbroken” (i.e., a process allowing a user access to system resources and/or privileges not intended by the smart phone developer), restored multiple times, and had several applications from untrustworthy sources installed. Malicious software may attempt to hide events that negatively influence the trust level of a computing device (e.g., jailbreaking) and to misrepresent the trust level of the computing device as high.